Turkish coalmine disaster: death tolls tops 280, PM Tayyip Erdogan on the defensive over safety record

Updated
Thu 15 May 2014, 4:57 PM AEST

Gallery

Turkey mine disaster

Anger is mounting in Turkey after more than 280 miners were killed in a huge underground coal mine explosion in the country's west.

Rescuers at the Soma mine have so far recovered 282 bodies, but scores more men are believed to be trapped underground after the pit caved in on Tuesday following an explosion caused by an electrical fault.

Furious Turks heckled prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and jostled his entourage as protests erupted in several cities over the disaster, the worst industrial accident in the nation's history.

Unions have called a one-day strike and the mine's bosses have been accused of sending miners to their deaths "like lambs to the slaughter" by neglecting safety at the mine.

ABC Middle East correspondent Matt Brown is at the Soma mine in western Turkey.

It's a terrible scene.

There are families of the people still missing and the families of those confirmed dead comforting each other.... some of them look shell-shocked.

There are mine workers coming out with coal dust over their faces and their headlamps still burning bright.

They are telling us that today they have pulled no survivors out of the mine, only the dead, and they are still trying to make sure the fire underground is under control.

They're still trying to work out how to get air to the pockets where they hope some of their comrades are trapped alive.

With every second passing, with the fire and all the terrible gases in the mine, you have to doubt anyone's coming out alive.

Turkey has seen a decade of rapid economic growth but still suffers from one of the world's worst workplace safety records.

Mr Erdogan expressed his regret after visiting the site in Soma, about 480 kilometres south-west of Istanbul.

"We as a nation of 77 million are experiencing a very great pain," he told a news conference.

But he appeared to turn defensive when asked whether sufficient precautions had been in place.

"Explosions like this in these mines happen all the time. It's not like these don't happen elsewhere in the world," he said, reeling off a list of global mining accidents since 1862.

Angry residents broke windows at the local government offices in Soma, some chanting "Erdogan resign", while parts of the crowd lining the street booed as the prime minister walked through the town, and jostled members of his entourage.

Protesters later kicked Mr Erdogan's car as it left the area.

Opponents blame Mr Erdogan's government for privatising the country's mines and ignoring repeated warnings about their safety.

Fire knocked out power and shut down ventilation shafts and elevators at the pit shortly after 3:00pm (local time) on Tuesday. Emergency workers pumped oxygen into the mine to try to keep those trapped alive during a rescue effort that lasted through the night.

Thousands of family members and co-workers gathered outside the town's hospital searching for information on their loved ones.

"We haven't heard anything from any of them, not among the injured, not among the list of dead," said one elderly woman, Sengul, whose two nephews worked in the mine along with the sons of two of her neighbours.

"It's what people do here, risking their lives for two cents ... they say one gallery in the mine has not been reached, but it's almost been a day."